- Title: SWITZERLAND: UN announces 600 million dollar fund for Gaza
- Date: 30th January 2009
- Summary: DAVOS, SWITZERLAND (JANUARY 29, 2009) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF WEF CONGRESS CENTRE EXTERIORS SECURITY OUTSIDE CONGRESS CENTRE
- Embargoed: 14th February 2009 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Switzerland
- Country: Switzerland
- Topics: International Relations
- Reuters ID: LVAXBR1OPYJFREON44TL71N206T
- Story Text: UN announces multi-million dollar aid package for Gaza as Israel's opposition leader threatens retaliation over rocket attacks.
STORY As violence continued to threaten a fragile Gaza ceasefire on Thursday (January 29), UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon announced a 613 million US dollar fund to help the victims of violence in Gaza.
"The population were already vulnerable because of so many months of severely restricted supplies. That is why humanitarian special appeal for Gaza that we are announcing today is so timely and so important. With the help of this 613 million dollar appeal the United Nations and other aid agencies can jump into action to help the 1.4 million civilians in the Gaza strip to recover," Ban Ki-Moon told reporters at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Some 1,300 Palestinians, including at least 700 civilians, were killed during Israel's 22-day offensive in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in the territory.
The EU's external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero-Waldner said she was confident in the abilities of U.S. President Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, former U.S. Senator George Mitchell.
Mitchell planned to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the occupied West Bank following talks on Wednesday in Egypt, which has been trying to broker a long-term truce, and Israel.
Benita Ferrero-Waldner said she thought Mitchell was the right man for the job of reinforcing the fragile truce.
"I think the nomination of Mr Mitchell is an excellent nomination and I hope that the pressure of meeting very early with the Middle East quartet and with the new secretary of state, Mrs Hillary Clinton and that we can even with this catastrophe in Gaza find possibilities to justify a sustainable ceasefire and then to begin the peace process again."
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Ferrero-Waldner also said the EU hoped that a unity Palestinian government could be formed, as that would be the only way to establish lasting peace.
"Indeed we all want a reconciliation, because otherwise how can we have a two-state solution, so I think this is the next step. If such a government is there, then we will certainly all talk with such a government," she said.
Palestinian militants in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip launched one rocket into Israel late on Wednesday -- the first since the Jan. 18 ceasefire -- and another on Thursday. No one was hurt.
Also in Davos, Israel's opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would not allow its people to live in danger of attacks.
" We cannot leave it, we can't leave our citizens unprotected against the rain of rockets," Netanyahu said.
The surge of violence over the past two days threatened to reignite a war that Israel launched on Dec. 27 with the declared aim of ending cross-border rocket fire. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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